The hottest club in the world is not the legendary Berghain in Berlin, or Output in NYC, or Zouk in Singapore. It’s the grandfatherly sounding North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that is, almost 75 years after being founded, trending and trending hard as #Nato. Marx – of the Groucho variety – had famously said that he refused to join any club that would have him as a member. Well, we don’t live in Marxist times. Everyone, and not just Ukraine, wants to join Nato. The latest membership being facilitated is that of ‘neutral’ Sweden. Along with Finland, Sweden is ditching its non-alignment pact and seemingly going back to its medieval stance of being anti-Russia – this time, not as ‘aggressors’ but as ‘defenders of the European way of life’ from the Asiatic Putinaites. From the Kremlin PoV, of course, this is ganging up against a ‘resurgent Rus’. Which, of course, China will quietly giggle at even as Turkey harrumphs. The evaporation of the Soviet Union brought earlier buffer republics ‘out in the cold’. Moscow’s paranoia has since fed Europe’s paranoia – with the US, quite comfortably, pulling the levers from way across the pond. It’s true that India does not have the North Atlantic, never mind the Atlantic Ocean, anywhere near its shores. But why should that matter? Let’s also apply to join Nato. Gatecrashing this 31st is very much an option.
